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jatx:
Not doubting your sincerity, but this looks a lot like typical rhetoric on a significant anniversary. Almost all of the apologies were to their Asian neighbors.
Even the statement allegedly acknowledging the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was caveated, "Japan commenced war against the Allied Powers in December 1941 with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (while a notice to terminate Japan-U.S. negotiations was delayed in the Japanese embassy)...." Was that meant to offset the fact that they initiated an unprovoked attack killing 2,400 Americans, many in their sleep? I don't think I would judge the American public's opinion on anything based on a letter signed by 35 professors, either.
I understand your perspective, but see your cites as a few isolated incidents and weak apologies made to appease their Asian trading partners. Based upon my opposing experiences, while I do have some good friends there, I am not buying into the Japanese population's wholesale acknowledgement and repentance for their aggression, barbarism, war crimes, and subsequent revisionist history. Koizumi's actions speak louder than empty rhetoric from nine years ago, and probably represent the Japanese public's real position on the war.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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